Dear Fulltilt Min-Raiser… December 12, 2008

Dear Fulltilt Min-Raiser,

I just wanted to write and share my thoughts with you.  Now that our game is done and you can no longer “berate” me in chat (which I’m proud to say I didn’t answer to), I can let you know just what you did wrong.

If you do not want your pocket Kings to be cracked by a big blind hand, my suggestion to you is not to minimum raise one off the button with said pocket kings.  When you minimum raise like this, it encourages the blind hands to call as well as the button.  After both the button and the small blind called your lil mini raise, I was so inclined to call the one bet with my 2,3 of clubs.

When on the flop I hit said hand in the way of bottom two pair and bet out 3/4 of the pot, you should sit and wonder before insta re-raising about whether my blind hand included any raggedy cards considering the flop came 2,3,7 rainbow.  I thank you for the re-raise and I was very happy to oblige you with a call and hope that bad luck didn’t shine on my side and give you your miracle outs after playing your hand so very wrong.

Now after I’ve hit my hand and won and knocked you out of one of the four matrix sngs, I found it hilarious that you felt the need to berate me in the room you are knocked out of and waste precious energy in a room you don’t need to have up and open instead of deciding to berate me in one of the three other rooms we were still sharing.  I thought it was great that you called me an idiot and a donk and yelled at me for calling you with a hand such as mine.

First off, I’m allowed to call you with absolutely any hand I want to call you with as it is my money I am risking.  Second, it is your own bad play that got you into that situation.  If you had even raised 3x the big blind or more I would never have called with my measly 2,3 suited.  I was thankful to you for playing so poorly as it allowed me to double up and go on to break even in this matrix sng.

I was very encouraged to see that your tilted behavior followed you into the other 3 rooms as I watched you time and again take idiotic risks that you probably would not have taken if you weren’t still steaming over the fact that my 2,3 beat your KK.  Although you claimed I was the donk in the game, I noticed that not only did you not make the money but in every single room you went out before me.  I was pleased that my good play affected your bad play oh so much.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to reason.  Now the next time you min-raise in my blind you will understand why I am calling you with such crap cards.

Sincerely,

punkymonroe

So matrix sngs save my bankroll haha December 11, 2008

I think it is funny that one of my more recent posts were how I wasn’t crazy about the matrix sngs on fulltilt.  I did some trades with a couple friends between ft and ps and left myself a bit short (about $35-40) on ft.

I was playing $2 stts (although I should have probably been playing $1 ones but I hate the fact that the rake is the same for both the $1 and the $2 stts so tend to lean toward the $2 ones ) and out of 25 stts played I cashed in only 10 of them (with most of the 10 cashes being 3rd place) and with a few mtts that I tried, I left  my bankroll at a very desperate $11.

I honestly felt like I was playing well but was definitely finding myself taking some tough beats and running into some unreal situations.  One day I went out of 3 consecutive tournaments when I was in the sb (and short stacked) with a big ace and was first in and moved in and in all 3 my big ace ran into QQ in the bb and not once did my cards connect.  It was completely unreal but the worst was playing in a mtt for hours and being a heartbeat from the money and having 50k in chips (above average stack) and see AA in my hand, someone utg moves in for 58k, I call all in (sigh) and someone else calls all in as well.  utg had junk, I had AA, and the other all-in (shorter than me) had JJ.  JJ wins but I come in 2nd and I’m left with about 15k in chips.  Two hands later I’m dealt AA again.  UTG moves all in, I call and he shows 66 and the flop comes 66 and I’m out of the tournament.  Two Ace hands down in flames in a matter of mere minutes.

I’d never been that low before on ft and didn’t know how to handle it.  I was at a loss and my first thoughts were to play one $10 stt and move on to ps lol.  I of course did not do this because my strict bankroll managed mind said a resounding NO.  Instead I took the points that I had and decided to play some points satellites.  I bubbled in a few (grrrrr) and then won some points in others and finally won one for 2500 pts.  It put me in a better mindset to salvage my bankroll.

I started thinking about those crazy dumb matrix sngs and starting thinking along the lines of being able to calm my frenzied fast-paced brain by playing 4 stts at once but it will only cost me either $1.25 or $2.25 (depending on which buy-in I chose to play) and chances are I would at least cash in one of them or maybe even 2 and I’d get a lot of play and may make a little profit.

I started out and kept breaking even or losing a tiny bit of money.  After a few of these I started getting the groove of how they worked.  Some people start out fast, trying to double up in every room right away.  That’s great when it works but it usually does not work.  I’ve been on the unfortunate end of their luck a few times when my AA got cracked by crap hands in the first couple hands of the sng.  I chose to start off a bit slower.  When I did have a hand I felt was unbeatable though I would push push push against those who were playing loose and taking chances.  This strategy has been working for me.

I’ve slowly and patiently built my bankroll from the $11 up to $23 in the past few days.  It may not seem like alot but in just a few days of grinding it out in these matrix sngs I’ve doubled my bankroll.   I’m making the top 3 about 50% of the time.  I’ve played in 14 in the last week or so and I’ve cashed in 13 of them with7 of those being profitable cashes (with 2 first place matrix finishes) and the other 6 recouping almost all of my buy-in.

It is a slow way to build up a bankroll but if you are a consistent casher in sngs, it is a good way to do so.